when to add plugin's

[doug662]

I use BIAB and EQ on it {track one} usually four plug in's on guitar and vocals. Do I wait till all recording is done then add the VST plug in's so as to not burden the CPU? Or, can you add them and just disable as you need to? I am trying to trouble shoot using ASIO4ALL. My gut says wait till last thing but I have no proof.

 

[Massive Master]

Add 'em when you want 'em. If the CPU load is fine, there you go. There are plenty of people who track with plugs on sends engaged just to get a better headphone mix.

 

[Bobbsy]

As Massive Master says, add them when you need them. I typically add most of them after the tracking so I can hear how the tracks interact with effects added but that's just a preference.

You don't mention what DAW you're using, but a lot have the ability to pre-render effects to reduce the load on your CPU if that becomes an issue...but still be able to go back and change things.

 

[doug662]

I am using reaper and pre render and plug ins on send are greek terms to me any help on these two?

 

[Tadpui]

If you right-click on a track in Reaper, go to the Render/Freeze Tracks menu item, and from there you can choose to render or freeze tracks and mute the originals. This applies all of the effects on that track and renders it to a new audio file, and mutes the old track. Now you can hear the effects, but they aren't being processed real-time, and therefore don't cause any CPU usage (well, no CPU usage above what a normal audio track would incur).

You can use Ctrl+Click to select multiple tracks before right-clicking if you want to render/freeze multiple tracks at the same time.

Or you can select one or more tracks and go to the File->Render menu. At the top of that menu, select "selected tracks" instead of "master mix", and you can render stems from there. That'll accomplish the same thing, only with a little more control of the file format and file names of the resulting files.

 

[Bobbsy]

I am using reaper and pre render and plug ins on send are greek terms to me any help on these two?

Tadpui has given you the perfect explanation of how to pre-render tracks in Reaper. Basically what you're doing is let Reaper create the effects you're after then store them so your processor doesn't have to do them in real time. Simple playback is easy for a computer...but effects can take a lot of your available processing power.

Plug ins is just a sloppy way to describe effects--some of which may be native to Reaper and others may be 3rd party VST effects which you "plug in" to your computer.

 

[Armistice]

Why are you using ASIO4ALL?

 

[jkuehlin]

I use BIAB and EQ on it {track one} usually four plug in's on guitar and vocals. Do I wait till all recording is done then add the VST plug in's so as to not burden the CPU? Or, can you add them and just disable as you need to? I am trying to trouble shoot using ASIO4ALL. My gut says wait till last thing but I have no proof.

Add them as you need them, or wait. Either way. It really doesn't matter. If they start to wear down your CPU, its time to buy better computer.